Hiking Mount Kosciuszko in Australia

The seven summits are the highest peak on each continent. To achieve climbing the seven summits is about as rare as traveling to every country in the world; very few people have actually done it. In 2006, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa; which is the highest peak in Africa and was my first seven summit. My second was hiking Mount Kosciuszko in Australia.
Mount Kosciuszko is located about halfway between Sydney and Melbourne and just a few hours from the capital of Australia, Canberra. I flew into Canberra, hired a car and drove to the Thredbo Alpine Hotel; which would be the base for hiking Mount Kosciuszko in the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park.
The Thredbo Alpine Hotel is literally across the street from where you take the cable car to the beginning of the hike on Mount Kosciuszko so it is very convenient and also very comfortable. It is definitely the best place to stay if you plan on hiking Mount Kosciuszko.
Mount Kosciuszko is not a difficult hike at all and most novices can easily accomplish it in 3-4 hours. It is just over 7300 feet or 2200 meters and the smallest of the seven summits. Many people argue that it actually should not count as a seven summit and although Australia is a continent; some argue that it should be a part of Oceana and a mountain called Carstenz Pyramid in Papua or Irian Jaya at some 16,000 feet and technical should count.
I don’t concern myself with that kind of argument. That is similar to people arguing about how many countries there are or what counts as a country based on what list, etc. You know what they say about opinions…everyone’s got one!
That said, hiking Mount Kosciuszko is a lot of fun. It is a gradual ascent up a lot of metal grated path (you can see up close below) until you get close to the summit where it gets a little steeper and the path becomes dirt and rock. Again, it is not difficult but a very nice hike.
There are a lot of little lizards and critters to see along the way. There is also a public bathroom with real toilets and some other cool points of interest along the way. Like I said, it’s a casual but very fun hike.
At the summit, which I reached in an hour or so, you still feel awesome and accomplished. Easy or not, you’ve still accomplished a seven summit and that is something to be proud of!
The plaque and little rock mound at the top are pretty cool and it makes for good pictures standing up on it. There is also some information to the side. Of course the views from the summit are fantastic.
I sat up there for about an hour taking it in and enjoying the moment. You have to enjoy the moment when you do special things and not rush them because you never know if they will happen again. I try to be very cognizant of that in what I do and where I travel. You just never know.
That’s the thing in life and in travel: you never know! Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today and when you do something, especially something epic, let it sync in!
It takes a little effort to get to Thredbo in order to hike Mount Kosciuszko but it’s well worth it. You can actually go skiing in Kosciuszko National Park in the winter and there are great hikes and other outdoor activities during the summer.
A few hours drive is well worth hiking Mount Kosciuszko. A chance to hike a seven summit isn’t easy to come by and Mount Kosciuszko is low hanging fruit…don’t miss your chance!

Steel grates are to protect the delicate vegetation underfoot. It’s a true alpine environment with some very rare shrubs and grasslands. The National Park authority decided that the raised, steel path would cause less environmental impact than digging / maintaining a dirt (or other) track… You can also approach the peak from Charlottes Pass on the other side. It’s a longer (but still easy) walk, and less developed.

I invite you also to the English version of this mtkosciuszko.org.au website. You will find there a lot of information about the conquest of Mt Kosciuszko the highest peak of Australia, and about sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki the explorer who gave the mountain its name.